Ethereum trading

What is ether?

How to trade ether on Forex

What is Ethereum?

Ether & bitcoin: what is the difference?

Ether milestones

How does a smart contract work?

What is ether?

Ether is the second most popular cryptocurrency with the second biggest capitalization. It was created in 2014 by a group of Canadian developers. The exchange rate of ether against the US dollar is growing daily. Hundreds of thousands traders earn on ether rate fluctuations. The cryptocurrency has its own currency code – ETH, and symbol - Ξ, which is a letter of the Greek alphabet. The smaller parts of ETH have their names:

1/1000

Finney

1/106

Szabo

1/1018

Wei

For the past several years, ether has demonstrated robust growth. In 2015, it cost USD 1, but three years later the price skyrocketed above USD 1,000. Surely, such a rapid surge has attracted close attention of investors, miners and traders who strive to get the highest profit from this trend.

As in case with many other cryptocurrencies, the ether market is highly sensitive to any news and speculations about Ethereum platform. For example, the cryptocurrency plunged by 30% after a bug was detected in the DAO code*. However, practice shows that ether manages to recoup losses after sharp market reaction and precipitous declines.

Ether & bitcoin: what are the similarities and differences?

Bitcoin and ether are often considered to be almost the same. Indeed, these two phenomena of the third millennium have a lot in common.

the blockchain technology. The information about all transactions conducted with both cryptocurrencies is available to all the owners of the coins. Not a single transaction can be hidden or deleted.;

miners’ communities. New crypto coins are generated at a definite pace with participation of the so-called miners. A crypto coin is a certain code, a combination of letters and symbols. This code cannot be calculated in advance; it can be only discovered sorting through various combinations. As soon as somebody finds such a combination, a new record about a generated coin and its owner, a miner, appears in the blockchain..

Here are the differences between bitcoin and ether:

encryption algorithms;

the time needed for creation of a new block;

Initially, Bitcoin was intended for conducting online transactions on the Internet, whereas ether is a unit for carrying out transactions specifically on the Ethereum platform. As ether is used for execution of smart contracts, many experts consider this cryptocurrency to be very promising..

Here are the differences between Bitcoin and ether on Forex

As for differences between Bitcoin and ether on Forex, both of them are high-yielding trading instruments. The first one is more popular while the second one has a greater potential. There is an opinion that ether will replace Bitcoin and become the leader in this segment.

Even now ether demonstrates a steeper growth than Bitcoin. The interest in it is growing, and many investors prefer ether when choosing between these two cryptocurrencies as they perceive it more advanced with higher yield potential.

Furthermore, ether attracts fewer big players compared to Bitcoin, so it is less susceptible to manipulations.

Start trading bitcoin

Start trading Ethereum

How to trade ether on Forex?

On Forex, ether can be traded as CFD. This means that a trader can earn on its price fluctuations without owning the cryptocurrency. It is enough to simply predict the price moves of ether against the US dollar and enter the market in the right direction. CFD trading on ether can be performed on MetaTrader 4. So, basically you only need to have an account with InstaForex; terms for trading and funds withdrawals are the standard ones. Consequently, cryptocurrency trading and withdrawal of profits are done under our classic conditions – fast execution of deals, a wide range of payment systems for deposit and withdrawal of funds, as well as an opportunity to take advantage of the expert advice that may help traders to forecast price movements.

Why trade cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency has no physical form, they are virtual.

All transactions are irreversible; no one can interfere in this process, even you.

Cryptocurrency is not backed, so they cannot be exchanged for other financial instruments unlike gold.

All transactions are totally anonymous. The information about transactions is instantly spread across the network and confirmed in a few minutes.

No central bank issues cryptocurrency, this network is totally decentralized.

High security of transactions is ensured by the cryptographical system with a public key.

Ether milestones

2014

Startup capital was raised through crowdfunding.

The initial public offering raised 31,591 bitcoins which was almost $18.5 million. This amount was later exchanged for 60,102,216 ETH.

What is Ethereum and how does it influence ether’s cost?

Ethereum is an open-source platform for building decentralized applications (Dapps) which use smart contracts running on the blockchain technology. In other words, this is a peer-to-peer technology that enables users of the platform to work directly with each other. This collaboration is streamed to other users; however, information on the contract is exchanged directly between the participants and duplicated to others without being broadcasted on the common information channel. Dapps have similar logic to BitTorrent where information is passed from one computer to another and not requested through the common server by each user.

The uniqueness of the Ethereum platform is in use of smart contracts which are being paid with ether. The creators of a smart contract allocate certain logic to it which allows for a fully automatic execution of transactions. Execution is considered finished when all the users confirm the payment (blockchain technology). In such a way, all participants of a contract can be positive about the transparency of the deal. The Ethereum technology has already caught attention of investors, financiers, and such corporate giants as Microsoft, IBM, Acronis, and Sberbank. Invented by 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian genius, in 2015, the platform made a splash.

How does a smart contract work?

A buyer and a seller, both being users of the Ethereum platform, agree on the product delivery indicating the payment and delivery terms in the form of a mathematical algorithm.

The smart contract is executed once it is signed by a user with a special electronic signature. Every user of the platform has a unique signature.

Before the product is delivered, a buyer pays the full amount of the purchase. All these actions are logged in the history of the transactions available to every user of the platform (the blockchain principle).

Once the buyer receives the product, the funds are credited to a seller, thus the contract is executed under the encoded terms.

In case the terms of the contract are breached (for example, delivery did not happen), the funds return to the buyer. If the buyer breached the storage terms (did not pick up the product on time), he automatically incurs a penalty as stipulated in the contract. The remaining money is transferred back to the buyer and the product is returned to the seller.

All actions happen without any human participation, and are fixed in a blockchain. This guarantees both the buyer and seller safety of funds in case a counterparty breaches the contract.

Advantages of smart contracts:

Safety

The contract is kept encrypted within the decentralized network. This means that no one can influence the contract execution.

Accuracy

There is no need to fill out multiple forms which eliminates risks of errors.

Reliability

Documentation cannot be lost as it is duplicated in the blockchain many times.

Financial benefit

There is no need to pay for the third-party services.

Anonymity

Private information on deals between users is not disclosed.

In the future, based on the Ethereum platform, it is planned to create decentralized ships, a network for the exchange of solar energy - and this is just the beginning. The potential of this crypto currency is unlimited, hence its titanic popularity.